I had an epiphany one day recently. Here it is: I’d been chosen. Chosen for what? The answer is, I’d been chosen to wait. Any writer is. There could be a whole blog about just that. But the reason I realized I’d been chosen wasn’t because I’m currently waiting to hear back from this or that publisher, or to receive a vision from on High as to what I should write next. Well, it is, but it’s also because of a letter from my dad, penned when I was twenty-two years old. He couldn’t have looked into the future and seen my day-to-day vigil as a writer. But in his letter, he said he’d prayed for a verse for me, and one immediately popped into his head: “Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” (Isaiah 40:31 NASB) Dad said he believed I would find strength and confidence in the days and years to come in this verse. And here I am, years later . . . waiting.

I’ve been chosen, yes. But I always felt singled out in a negative sense — why, oh why, have I been picked for this? Then I looked at the promises. New strength. Flying like an eagle, my troubles far beneath me as I soar, oh so safely, over the battlefields of life. I run, but don’t get tired. I walk, but don’t get weary. These promises are more than just uplifting words, they’re miracles. They’re supernatural. The only way for them to be fulfilled is through the power of the almighty God.

If you, too, have been chosen, take heart — the gain is eternal, the pain temporary. Be strengthened while you wait, seeking first . . . Him.